*YCLSA Oupa Pasha district Press statement * June 17, 2013
*STATEMENT CONDEMNING THE VIEWS EXPRESSED BY THE MAYOR AND MEC OF SPORTS ON THE OCCASION OF A YOUTH LECTURE* The Young Communist League of South Africa [uFasimba] in Oupa Phasha District, Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality wishes to acknowledge the efforts by the municipality through the Youth Unit to convene a municipal youth lecture that was held on 15 June 2013. The intention of the lecture was to contribute in educating young people about our history and presenting the challenges faced by the youth in the current democratic conjuncture. But the views expressed by the Mayor Mr Mondli Gungubele, that the current capitalist system is by far the best method and understandable economic system that is suited for our country and our people should be condemned in the strongest terms by the ANC and the progressive youth formations in Ekurhuleni. With such remarks Mr Gungubele shows that he does not care about the conditions of our people who are exploited by and who are poor because of the very capitalist system that he is praising. There were other de-educating notions which must equally be condemned, such as the Gautrain is not an elitist project, which were presented in the “lecture” by the MEC of Sports, Arts, Culture and Recreation Mr Lebohang Maile. This represents a narrow, elitist perception that clearly indicates that some of our leaders are not informed by the material conditions faced by the poor and the working class on the ground. Mr Maile cannot justify why has the design of the Gautrain routes avoided all of the townships where the poor and the working class, especially black people, are living. Gautrain buses continue to display the wasteful nature of the project by strictly adhering to routes in ivory tower suburbs being less than half empty at the exclusion of the areas where the poor and the working class, especially black people live. Mr Maile should be encoyraged to board a train from Park Station to Bosman in the early hours of morning and tell us how many people he would notice taking the Gautrain in Rhodesfield Station and from Bosman. We doubt that also that he would even find space to enter trains to Tshwane in the morning and the afternoons. The remarks by Gungubele and Maile shows how once comfortable in hefty government pecks some of our leaders become the carriers of oppressive and exploitative ideas that help our people with nothing if not misery. We are very disappointed with both Maile and Gungubele. It is our view that if the ANC is represented by such individuals our democratic gains as fought for by the class of 1976 are doomed because both are just typical examples of the mouth pieces of the exploiters within our government leadership systems. It is even worse when the Mayor, Mr Gungubele further argues that there is nothing wrong when within our society we have the rich and poor. This is completely astray from fundamental ANC principles of a better life for all and the elimination of inequality. If the ANC does not think twice about such individuals one day it could be too little too late to take action because water would be under the bridge sinking in dirtied soils to be recovered for useful purposes. Individuals must not be allowed to make use of public platform to advance their capitalist class interests instead of the mandate of an overwhelming majority of the workers and the poor who form the bedrock of the electorate that places the ANC in government. Issued by the YCLSA Oupa Pasha District For more information contact: Mandla Matsane YCLSA District Secretary Cell: 078 444 6845 -- -- You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected] . You don't have to put anything in the "Subject:" field. You don't have to put anything in the message part. All you have to do is to send an e-mail to this address (repeat): [email protected] . --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "YCLSA Discussion Forum" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
